Little Black Book review

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A fragile-looking Brittany Murphy doesn't act so much as squeak through this chick-flick in rom-com clothing. Screechy and neurotic, her character - - Stacy, an associate producer on a daytime talk-show - - is the kind of girl you'd want to keep secrets from, if only to avoid her eardrum-puncturing bleating.

So it's no surprise that, when her current beau (The Cooler's Ron Livingston) gets a call from an ex-girlfriend, she starts snooping through his Palm Pilot and committing some ridiculously convoluted acts of subterfuge to see if he's keeping any secrets from her. Even Holly Hunter - - as the man-hating colleague who persuades Murphy to hunt down her boyfriend's old flames - - can't act interested in this genre-bending mix of I Love Lucy and Single White Female.

While the last-minute twist thrown in by British director Nick Hurran is intriguing, it completely capsizes what could otherwise be mildly entertaining fodder for the undemanding.

The Total Film team are made up of the finest minds in all of film journalism. They are: Editor Jane Crowther, Deputy Editor Matt Maytum, Reviews Ed Matthew Leyland, News Editor Jordan Farley, and Online Editor Emily Murray. Expect exclusive news, reviews, features, and more from the team behind the smarter movie magazine. 

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